Watch 1PM Weekly News - August 28, 2023
This week Shelby covers 7 breaking news stories--from lab grown meat by The Better Butchers, a Canadian company, to AI technology that can sort recyclable materials.
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G20 Subsidies for Fossil Fuels
Two years ago at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, or COP-twenty-six, world leaders agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies that incentivize dirty industry. At the time, many environmentalists spoke up to say that the language of the agreement lacked urgency and ambition. Those concerns have been proven correct. Since twenty-twenty, G-twenty countries’ investments in fossil fuels have risen. Last year, they provided over one trillion dollars in subsidies. Much of that funding comes from public money.
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cop26
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/23/g20-poured-more-than-1tn-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies-despite-cop26-pledges-report
Ecuadorians vote for "Major victory for all indigenous people...the spirits of the forest"
But in Ecuador, the people have voted to stop the development of all new oil wells in Yasuni national park in the Amazon. The referendum passed by a margin of almost twenty percent. In the nation’s capital, Quito, citizens also voted to block gold mining in a highland nearby the city. An Indigenous leader said, quote, “This is a major victory for all Indigenous peoples, for the animals, the plants, the spirits of the forest and our climate.”
A Letter for Climate Advocacy
In the UK, twelve hundred academics from a large cross-section of research backgrounds have come together to craft a letter pushing for climate advocacy. The letter is addressed to the Royal Society, a leading scientific institution in the UK with a mission to quote “recognize, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.” The academics’ letter urges the Society to officially condemn the fossil fuel industry where they have previously been silent or ambiguous. The Society is set to meet with a group of the letter writers at a currently undisclosed time.
- https://royalsocietyletter.uk/
- https://royalsociety.org/about-us/
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/23/uk-academics-urge-royal-society-to-condemn-fossil-fuel-industry
The Better Butchers 100% Cultivated Meat
Meanwhile, in Canada, startup company The Better Butchers just announced plans to open a one hundred percent cultivated meat butchery by twenty-twenty-four. It would be the first of its kind worldwide. And in the US, the Department of Agriculture approved two lab-grown chicken companies this past June. Cultivated, or cultured, meat comes from the cells of animals, but the protein is grown in a lab without the need for a live animal. Cultivated meat producers hope to give carnivores the taste and texture of animal-based dishes without the environmental impact or animal slaughter.
- https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/the-better-butchers-world-first-cultivated-meat-butchery-canada/
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lab-grown-meat-approved-for-sale-what-you-need-to-know/
Fracking Linked to Harmful Health Risks
Next, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Health have released new study results that investigate fracking-related health risks. The data suggest links between proximity to fracking operations and childhood lymphoma, low birthweight, and asthma. A recent meta analysis of human health risks related to fracking showed strong evidence for local environmental contamination, including of known carcinogens. But more research is needed to draw conclusions about complicated health outcomes.
- https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16082023/pennsylvania-fracking-link-childhood-lymphoma/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7225182/
Reducing Coal Reduced Hospital Visits
In related news, researchers at New York University’s School of Medicine published results from an investigation of healthcare utilization changes after a Pittsburgh coal processing plant closed in twenty-sixteen. The study showed that local residents decreased weekly hospital visits for heart-related conditions by forty-two percent immediately after the shutdown. Hospitalizations continued to decline over the next two years as compared to the three years before the plant closed. These results echo similar findings from the Allegheny County Health Department’s research into decreased asthma and cardiac conditions after the closure of a coal processing plant on Pittsburgh’s Neville Island.
AI Organizes Recyclables
And finally, tech startup Amp Robotics has developed AI technology designed to sort recycling. Materials recovery facilities struggle to appropriately sort and recover various recyclable goods. And that’s important because materials that aren’t recovered wind up swimming in our oceans, languishing in landfills, or being burned into our atmosphere. Currently, AI sorters are between eighty-five to ninety-nine percent accurate, and the largest residential-recycling company in the US, Waste Management, plans to invest eight hundred million dollars to add them to their infrastructure. But these robots can’t do everything, so keep cleaning out those peanut butter jars before you toss them in your blue bin.